


we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright)

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Because They Deserve To Be Happy, Ben Wyatt voice "it's about the yearning", Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Getting Together, I understand that all the losers are like 40, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie baby on Maturin imma get you some therapy, Stanley Uris Lives, bill/mike if you SQUINT, but they are my children, god r + e love each other so MUCH, it's Richie ya'll you know how it goes, lots of swearing, temporary character death that lasts like five paragraphs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21591520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: “When Eddie wakes up,” Stan tried, lying down a two of clubs on a three of hearts. “Are you going to tell him?”To which Richie said: "Go fish."[Or, neither Eddie OR Stan die and that, of course, changes things, because unlike Stephen King I am not a coward.]
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 39
Kudos: 817





	we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright)

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no excuse for this. None. Notta. Also, yes this is named from the song "fine line" by harry styles (which is SUCH a reddie song holy shit) and I won't apologize for it. And let's be honest with ourselves, here: if bill hader didn't break my fucking heart those last twenty minutes of it chapter two, I would've moved on by now. also I feel like this type of fix-it has been cranked out so frequently but *shrugs* I'm going for it 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> edit: jan. 31st, 2020- thank you to everyone kind enough to leave kudos and know that if you commented, I see each one of them and I appreciate you taking the time to leave your words behind. thank you, x!

Pretty much everyone has heard the story of Icarus, or at least the Sparknotes version. 

If you haven't, it goes something like this: 

Some dumbass and his father, a brilliant guy who was made to build the labyrinth to contain a half-man, half-beast for all eternity are desperately trying to make their way off an island in bum-fuck nowhere Greece. Icarus's father, all of his brain cells firing on all cylinders, reasons that he and Icarus can fasten wings to a wooden frame out of wax and feathers. They launch their escape plan, working quickly on a little scenic strip of beach. It can only be assumed they hurry to a high point, jump off with the hope they won't hit the ground, and flap their arms like chickens trying to avoid the slaughterhouse. Before they'd even taken off, though, the dad had said: "do not fly too close to the sun or else, yanno, you'll fucking crash and die." 

And like the good son he was, Icarus completely ignored this bit of advice. 

He'd been intoxicated by the feeling of flight, of soaring higher than any other human would for a few thousand years. Every inch between Icarus and the ground had been a revelation, but the further into the atmosphere he went, the closer he got to the sun. The wax began to give way, feathers flaking free, wooden frame creaking until Icarus was pinwheeling through the air to the tune of his father's screams. The stupid bastard brained himself on some rocks in the sea, doomed to become a lesson for the ages: _don't want too much, don't be greedy._

Richie, all of ten, had raised his eyebrows and glanced over his shoulder to Eddie in a _can you believe this shit?_ sort of way. 

Richie, who was currently pushing forty, who had tanked his career in a matter of an hour, and who hadn't left Eddie's hospital room in the better part of three days tried not to think about it at all.

*

In the bowels of Neibolt, Richie knew in the meat of his soul that Eddie was gone. 

He knew it, but he refused to believe it. 

"I'm not fucking— do not touch me! I'm not leaving here without him!" Richie howled, and for all the fierceness in his voice, his arms cradled Eddie with a tenderness he'd forgotten he was capable of. 

"Honey," Bev said, her hand landing on and squeezing the meat of his shoulder. "He's... Richie, he's—"

Richie would not entertain _that_ for even a second. He’d been intimately aware of his own heart for the last two days, and now, he could feel his chest squeezing hard enough his eyes stung. 

"Shut up!" 

"Come on," Stan pressed, and Richie thrashed away from the pair of hands that made to untangle him from around Eddie, only for Stan to swat at him. "Get him up, okay? We're carrying him out. Come on, Rich, help me get him up." 

"Guys— ," Ben tried, making to repeat something like _we've got to go_ or _this place is coming down fast_ as if Richie wouldn't prefer a quick exit. As if Richie wouldn't prefer to be back on the ground with— with— 

Stan smacked Richie's chest, and then Bill was maneuvering Richie out the way to take Eddie’s other side. 

"Let's go," Bill said, frantic, hand gripping Richie's jacket over the place Eddie had been impaled, the sight horrific enough to make Richie’s stomach lurch. One of the lenses of his glasses were cracked, was caked with Eddie’s blood and— and Bev’s hand was suddenly in his, and he was being pulled to the opposing end of the cistern. 

“I think I can get us out of here!” Mike yelled, hauling ass as he took point. Ben wasn’t too far behind, constantly shooting looks over his shoulder to be sure everyone was still accounted for, that Bev was in his line of sight. Richie was doing the same and he’d probably get whiplash from all the turning he did; Stan and Bill set a punishing pace even with Eddie secured between them ( _especially_ with Eddie secured between them), and Richie nearly tripped when Bev gave him a particularly hard yank. 

“We’re all getting out of here, Trashmouth,” she said, and if he hadn’t spared half a second to glance her way, Richie never would’ve heard her. 

By some small miracle, Mike was successful in finding the path back to the well, and Richie tried to go last if only to ensure Eddie got out before him, but Bev tugged him again, and he scrambled up the rope like some kind of spider monkey. He had his arms out when Ben hauled himself up the narrow cavern with Eddie carefully over his shoulders in a sloppy fireman’s carry, and then they were bolting for the front entrance, for fresh air, for the sunshine breaking through the boards across the windows. 

The moment they made it across the yard, Richie's legs gave out and by some silent, unspoken agreement, Bill and Stan decided to lower Eddie across Richie’s lap. The ring of blood sullying the fabric of Eddie’s shirt had only grown in size and, with a swoop of his stomach, Richie found that Eddie had gotten colder, that the heat in his cheeks had begun to fade. 

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Ben announced, phone in hand, pacing a few feet away so an operator on the other end of the line had a chance at hearing him.

“Richie?” Stan prompted, kneeling on Richie’s left. “It’ll be okay, you hear me? We… we got him out. We got him out, Rich. It’s alright.” 

And Richie didn’t know when he’d started to rock back and forth, when his chest had started to feel like it was on the verge of caving in, when he’d begun to mutter into Eddie's collar. Stan tipped in, aiming for clarity, surely. 

“Rich?” 

Practically barking, he insisted: “He’s not gone.” 

Richie didn’t have to look up to know concerned glances were being exchanged, that at least one of the Losers was likely Googling the number for the local looney bin.

 _Too bad I killed Bowers,_ he thought hysterically. _We could’ve been bunk buddies._

“R-Richie…,” Bill tried, his voice a rough scrape against the sudden quiet following Neibolt’s collapse. Big Bill looked tired, and despite the fatigue that was rapidly settling in, Richie didn’t think he’d ever be able to sleep again; not with the image of It’s claw-foot sinking right through Eddie’s middle, not with the weak way Eddie whispered Richie’s name before he was flung around the cavern like a rag doll. 

"We bullied that god damn clown to the size of a Yorkie," Richie pressed, hiccuping, gripping Eddie all the tighter. "And how did that work, huh? How'd we fucking do it?" 

"We believed," Mike said, and something in his face was shifting, was changing, like Richie's idea was growing roots in him. 

“Richie…”

“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that, Bill!” 

“Boys,” Bev interjected, fingers curled over her lips to hide the way her mouth was quivering. Tears cut through the blood on her face. “Please.” 

"It...," Stan swallowed, an audible clicking of his trachea. His eyes darted between Richie and Eddie, landing somewhere between them with a shuddery breath. "It can't hurt, can it?" 

"No," Richie said, practically gasping for how quick his breaths had become. "No, it can't.” 

“The ambulance is a few minutes out,” Ben announced, lost to the fray. “He’ll get help, soon.” 

“He can be helped right now if you assholes just— just fucking _cooperate_ with me! Bev," Richie tried, his voice breaking on her name. "Beverly. Come on, please." 

And he saw her throat hitch around a soft sob just as her knees trembled and gave way, too, and then she was beside him in all her fire. She was nodding, eyes tear-bright.

"No one in Derry ever really stays dead," Bev whispered, and then she was flattening a hand to Eddie's chest, eyes clenched shut in concentration. 

Ben was the next to join them, his hand landing just above Bev's with their fingers brushing. Mike followed and then Bill exhaled unsteadily and knocked his forehead into Richie's. To anyone who might find them all crowding around the figure on the vacant street, they probably looked like they were in the midst of the world's most intense prayer circle, which wasn't entirely inaccurate. 

And Richie was helpless to do anything but curl closer around Eddie, to think _I lost him once. The fucking clown made me forget him, but I don't think there's any memory wipes this time, and I don't know how I can go on if I only had two days with him. If I’m supposed to just_ — _pack up and act like that’ll be enough for the rest of my life._ A shift. _Out of all of us, Eds deserves to live_ — _to be happy and healthy without fear. Give him that. Let me give him that, please. Please, please, please._

And, right there on the sidewalk, Eddie Kaspbrak's chest lifted sharply, stuttering, as he sucked in a massive breath. Bev yelped in Richie's ear, and Bill muttered something like "holy shit it worked" and Stan's free hand lifted to grip and squeeze the nape of Richie's neck. 

In the distance, an ambulance wailed. 

*

Richie would not be moved. The others had cycled through to get their time with Eddie, who had been put into a medically induced coma once he’d gotten out of surgery; he knew they were getting antsy, anxious to get the hell out of Derry and back to the rest of their lives now that It was gone, but none would go until Eddie woke. 

Ben had gone to the Town House to get Richie a change of clothes, had even gone ahead and grabbed a set of clothes for Eddie, as well. Bill had raided the drug store to find what equated to a shower in a can for Richie to utilize in the small bathroom attached to Eddie’s hospital room. Mike smuggled in a flakey, chocolate-filled pastry from a bakery in town and didn’t touch his croissant until he was sure Richie had eaten every last crumb. And Stan, when the long silences and the precious, nerve-wracking beeping of the heart monitor became too much, told Richie all about the birds native to Atlanta until he had to pause for a long drink of water for fear of losing his voice. 

Bev sat with him the longest, though. She perched on the arm of his chair, and let him lean into her side, gently carding her fingers through his hair. The way she kept saying, _I know, honey, I know_ in her soft, soft voice made Richie want to scream and weep in equal measures. He settled for the latter, and her arm slid around his shoulders until Richie found he couldn't cry anymore.

But Eddie was alive, and breathing, and according to the best medical personnel that Derry General had to offer, would make a full recovery. So, all things considered, Richie was doing great. 

Until reality slammed in. 

"Where's his phone?" Stan asked. When Richie shot him a questioning look, he added, not unkindly: "Someone needs to call his wife, Rich." 

Wife. Eddie had a whole wife. A whole life. Without Richie. Right. 

"Right," Richie said, and he was pretty sure he nodded jerkily. "Sure, yeah. Someone should, um. Get on. That." 

And he didn’t have to look at Stan to know that something in the man’s face had changed. That he was openly staring at Richie, scrutinizing.

“I can take care of it,” Stan offered, and Richie nodded again, feeling more and more like a dollar store bobble head than a human being. All plastic and cheap parts. Hollowed on the inside, probably. Fuck, Richie needed to sleep, but he was abnormally wired with the effort behind making like a gargoyle and slumping, still and heavy, at Eddie’s side. “I’ll be right outside, okay?” 

“Yeah,” Richie muttered. “Thanks, Urine.” 

“Fuck you,” Stan replied, giving Eddie’s blanket-covered ankle a tender pat and bumping his hip into Richie’s bicep as he slipped out into the corridor. 

The ambulance ride had been the longest twenty minutes of Richie’s life. He'd tried not to get in the way of the EMTs who worked frantically to keep Eddie alive; who were far more patient with him than Richie likely deserved. By the time they'd rolled up to the emergency entrance at the hospital, Ben stamping his breaks as the rest of the Losers came to a grinding halt not fifteen yards away, Richie was still a sobbing mess. He couldn't see through the cracked lens of his glasses, and when Eddie, who had not opened his eyes or said a word since they were still in the sewers, was about to be wheeled out of sight, Richie made like a battering ram and lunged towards the pair of swinging doors.

“Sir!" An orderly yelped. "You can’t—!" 

And Stan, who had materialized at Richie's elbow, told the orderly: "He's the husband." 

At the time, Richie hadn't known whether he wanted to throttle or kiss Stan, so he settled for a shooting a brief look of gratitude over his shoulder as he jogged after the pair of nurses and the doctor that had rushed to meet them on arrival. 

For someone who was a ball of kinetic energy, ever in motion, always ready to combat whatever it is Richie decided to say, it was more than a little unnerving seeing Eddie so still. Richie asked the nurses for fresh blankets every morning, knowing that Eddie would hate to just be lying in his own germs for days on end; he used some of the dry shampoo Bill had picked up to knock the oil from Eddie's hair, but it could only do so much without a surging shower spray. He cradled Eddie's hand in both of his, learning every divot of his knuckles, each blue vein just under his skin. Richie traced his thumb over Eddie's neatly trimmed nails, marveling. Every touch felt like a robbery, and Richie tried not to want and failed before he'd even written his name atop the test. 

He was startled by a scuff of shoes. 

“Apparently,” Stan said, sounding slightly stunned. He was giving Richie what was likely meant to be a significant look. Richie, who’d left his rosetta stone for deciphering such expressions somewhere across the country, merely waited for the other man to keep speaking. “Eddie called Myra the night we all got to Derry and asked her for a divorce." 

" _Apparently,_ " Richie echoed, still trying to compute the words _Eddie_ and _divorce._ "Are you fucking with me right now?" 

"Richard," was the huffed response. "Why would I?" 

He couldn't say. He couldn't make his mouth work, which only seemed to worry Stan further. 

"I wonder why he didn't mention it," Stan mused, coming near enough to sit on the foot of Eddie's bed. "Granted... we've all be through the wringer in the last few days. Eddie especially." 

Richie snorted, a painful sound without an ounce of mirth behind it. "Stabbed, impaled, nearly fucking... nah, Staniel, it's just your typical New York weekend. He's fine." 

"Rich," Stan said. It wasn't... Richie couldn't do _that_ right now. He didn't dare lift his eyes from his lap, because if he did, Stan would be able to read him like a book and for all he hadn't realized he'd missed Stan, he hadn't missed the man's ability to just _know._ And Eddie wasn't even awake for Richie to say something stupid, something that would send the sweet lines around Eddie's eyes crinkling up. And Eddie, who had called his wife for a divorce, hadn't even... hadn't... hadn't fucking told— "Richie, hey. Hey. You need to breathe, dumbass. Yeah? Come on, Richie." 

He hadn't even realized his chest was starting to hitch, not on sobs, but on itself. Richie's throat constricted and every labored breath was— was working against him, and he very dimly realized— _you're having a panic attack. Moron._ His eyes darted from Eddie's face, which hadn't regained any color, to the heart-monitor beeping across the mattress, to Stan, who was squatting in front of Richie. Had flattened a hand on Richie's chest. _At least if you die, you're already in a hospital._ A laugh wedged up and out of his mouth. Stan didn't look calmed. 

"...hear me? Rich. Hey. It's alright. It's alright, but you have to breathe. You're, like, a special brand of idiot, but that's a must, yeah? Listen to my heartbeat, okay?" 

The hand Stan had reached out with was the one tightly wrapped with white gauze, the one Pennywise had been all too happy to giggle at and say, _you almost didn't cut it, Stanley. Why don't you try again, huh? Go on. Do it, do it—_

That was sobering. That was a punch to the gut and a bucket of ice down his back all at once. Richie gripped just below Stan's bandaged wrist, and he was sure he made a wounded sound that made Stan tense and curl close all at once. 

"I'm not going anywhere," was the soft response. "Fuck that clown, I'm not. Just breathe. Come on. Come on..." 

On their next shift, after Stan got Bill, Bev and Mike to peer pressure Richie into heading back to the Town House for a solid three hours in an actual bed, Stan was with him again. Bev had left a pack of playing cards she carried in her purse, something to combat the monotony of waiting for Eddie to come around. They sat on the same side of the hospital bed, and Richie tried not to think about how long it'd been since he heard Eddie's voice. 

“When he's up,” Stan tried, putting down a two of clubs atop a three of hearts. “Are you going to tell him?” 

He didn’t have to ask, _tell him what_? Richie knew if he did, he’d just get one of those patent pending Unimpressed Uris Grimaces in return. 

"Go fish," Richie said, and would've thrown his entire set of cards right at Stan in an abortive attempt at escaping, but Stan _sighed_ and Richie added, quieter: "No. No, man, I'm not saying shit." 

Stan put down an ace. "Why?" 

_Because he might be getting a divorce,_ Richie wanted to shout, would've if he knew it wouldn't cause a scene or... or if he trusted his luck wouldn't turn against him to make that the very moment Eddie stirred. _But that doesn't mean he loves me._ His stomach, ever the traitor, twisted and lurched upward, and he had to cover his mouth to stamp down on an unforgiving wave of nausea. 

"Tell me about the woman who made an honest man out of you," Richie requested, and it was easy bait. Every time someone mentioned Patty Uris, Stan lit up like fucking Times Square on New Years Eve, and Stan, sensing that he was treading a minefield liable to blow at any given second, let himself be baited. 

Richie loved him a little more for it. 

*

The fact of the matter is that Richie couldn't give less of a shit if Eddie loved him back. Wait. That wasn't entirely true. He'd lived the better part of thirty years without Eddie Kaspbrak, and he hadn't realized how dull and cold his world had been until he laid eyes on all five-foot nine inches of mister short, fit, and feisty in his god forsaken polo. It took a great deal of will power not to just... absolutely shut down at the sight of those brown eyes. The warmest color of Richie's childhood.

And Stan, who had been the last of the Losers to arrive with stark white gauze wrapped around his left wrist, had stared with an arched brow in that pointed way only Stan the Man could; he'd flicked his eyes between Richie and Eddie, his brow climbing further up his forehead. So fucking high, Richie kept waiting for the fine, dark hairs to merge into a pair of wings to flutter away. That little twitch of muscle seemed to prompt, _still, Richie? After all this time?_

And Richie, in turn, had thrown back three tequila shots in quick succession, as if to reply: _not a fucking word, man. Don't kick me when I'm already down._

Stan had sipped demurely at his glass of water, and knocked his knee into Richie's with a little frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. 

But the point is, he didn't plan to let Eddie slip out of his life again, not when Pennywise had robbed him of enough; Richie knew he'd always wanted too much where Eds was concerned. Even if it was nothing more than a few meet ups with the other Losers throughout the year, or long distance calls, or a flurry of texts, Richie was going to take it all. He'd loved in silence for the entirety of his youth, which he found pretty hysterical given he never could shut the fuck up about literally anything else, but in that silence he was safe. In that silence, things like rejection and fear were distant sensations that couldn't touch him. 

If Eddie let him stick around, Richie wasn’t going to do anything that might compromise their newly rekindled friendship. 

And if it meant choking on _I’ve loved you since I knew what it meant to love somebody else_ every time Eddie so much as blinked, well. That was Richie’s fucking problem, and Richie’s problem alone. 

*

_Don't be greedy. Don't want too much._ That's what the myth of Icarus warned. 

But Richie Tozier, both middle fingers raised, said: _fuck you, bird boy. Fuck you very much._

*

He was made to step out of Eddie’s room so one of the nurses could change his catheter and perform a couple of routine tests. Whatever that meant.

"I'll come grab you once I've updated your husband's chart," Shelly, the day nurse with the bubble-gum pink scrubs reassured him. Richie's brain short circuited at _your husband._ Damn it, Stan. "How's that sound?" 

Richie couldn't say how he replied to the woman once she shooed him out the room. She was still smiling, so he took that as a good sign.

There weren't any chairs right outside, so Richie nabbed a seat on a vacant bench down the hall. He didn't know what to make of the lack of patients and the scarce number of staff; maybe he'd spent too much time watching medical dramas and any hospital outside of NYC or LA just seemed too quiet. His glasses were smudged, but Richie made no move to clean them as he planted his elbows on his knees— _your husband, your husband, your husband._ If he could've gotten away with it, Richie would've screamed into his palms. 

“Hey old man,” Bev greeted, quietly, just in time to curb another would-be meltdown. She pressed a styrofoam cup of coffee into his hand and didn’t relent until Richie took a long swig. His nose crinkled at the taste. “Sit up, will you? You slumping like that is making _my_ back hurt.” 

Just to make her snort, Richie ruined his posture all the further. 

“Come on, Rich,” she said, giving the central knobs of his spine an encouraging pat. “Straighten up.” 

And maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe it was the pang of hunger and the pang of _hunger_ deep in his belly that had stirred ever since he caught sight of Eddie at the Jade of the Orient. Maybe it was just _Bev,_ in all her fire and tenderness. Maybe Eddie's divorce was eating at him in more ways than he'd admit. Or maybe it was the knee-jerk instinct to make a joke out of literally every fucking thing that mattered in some capacity, because Richie opened up his big, fat mouth and said:

“Kind of hard to do when I’m not... that.” 

It was a shit line. The shittiest of lines. Richie's ghost writer could’ve done a thousand times better in his sleep. 

Bev, softly, wagered, “Rich?” 

“Straight,” he said, because he never learned to shut up. “I’m not straight. Pennywise the fucking Homophobe threw that in my face from the time we were kids, and then when I left Derry, I— fuck,” Richie ducked forward to bury his face in his hands, glasses wedged uncomfortably against his eye socket. “Repression is a bitch.”

“It’s okay,” Bev whispered, and he tracked the clicking of her boots on the ceramic tile until a gentle hand was tugging on his wrist. “Richie, it’s _okay._ ” 

“I’m gay,” he said, still waiting for the hiss of the axe as it swung through the air and strike him down. For Bev to jerk away in disgust, to run screaming through the halls and right to the parking so long as it got her away from him. “I’m very, very gay.” 

He dared to peek at her, and was stunned to see her smiling at him, all soft and gentle and encouraging. So very _Bev._

“I’m glad you told me,” she said, and her fingers gave his knuckles a squeeze. “You—,” and she sniffled, and Richie sniffled, and they were both sniffling like assholes trying not to cry. “You deserve to be happy and to live your truth. You hear me? You _deserve_ it.” 

“Technically,” Richie croaked. When he couldn’t hold himself up any longer, Bev was there to catch him, her arms going around his shoulders and squeezing him as if she could wedge all his broken pieces back into place if she tried hard enough. “I told Stan first.” 

Bev squeezed his nape. “Today?” 

“No,” he admitted. “We were, like, thirteen. It was the summer shit hit the fan the first go round. Stan, the all knowing bastard, guessed. I wasn’t as… subtle as I thought I was.” 

A quiet laugh shuddered through Bev’s frame. He’d missed her. Next to Eddie, and just behind Stan, Richie missed Bev more than he could’ve ever known. 

“No, you really weren’t,” she said, and didn’t let him get too far when Richie reeled back. “You… overcompensated in a lot of areas, honey." 

The boob jokes. The constant talk about having sex with women. He had a whole armory of _your mom_ jokes and another artillery dedicated to raunchy comments about Pamela Anderson. They made him feel safe. All that armor he'd pulled up and around himself, carefully maintained to avoid any chinks or places for people like the Bower's gang to get at his underbelly, and it'd been for what? 

"Richie," Bev pressed, her voice snagging him by the collar before he could delve too deep in his own head. "I'm so proud of—"

"Did he finally shower for real?" 

He hadn't even heard Haystack approach, and Richie, figuring _what the hell?_ blurted: "Nope, I'm just very gay." 

Ben blinked, and Bev choked on a laugh. 

“Oh,” Ben said, lamely. He spread his hands at his sides as a true, face-splitting smile was tugging up the corners of his mouth. “Congratulations?” 

“Wow,” Richie pretended to swoon, ignoring the cold sweat that persisted across his brow. He tipped across Bev’s lap with a hand raised to his forehead like a fainting seventeenth century maiden. He didn't feel like he was going to puke, but the itch of _protect yourself_ lingered on even as the instinct was combatted by _it's_ _Bev and Ben calm down._ “What a man you’ve gotten yourself, Marsh. He’s down with the gays. It’s me. I’m the gay.” 

“You’re the _what_?” Oh, that was Bill. And Mike. And Stan, there, grinning small and proud at him from behind the others. The surge of anxiety was almost worth it for that, alone. 

“Uh,” Richie paled, swallowing. Bev squeezed his arm. “Surprise?” 

Then Mike was surging in, and Bev yelped as she got wedged between him and Richie. Bill followed, Ben and Stan close behind to form a puppy pile of limbs right there in the middle of the corridor. 

“W-we l-l-love you, man,” Bill said, his left hand spanning the side of Richie’s head. “N-no matter w-what.” 

“No matter what, Rich,” Mike echoed, offering Richie one of his huge, eye-crinkling grins that made Richie think of summer days by the quarry. “I’m glad you got out of this narrow-minded town.” 

He looked to each of them, face to beloved face (and didn't think about how the face he loved the most was still slack and still), and how there was nothing hateful in any of their expressions. Just open tenderness. Acceptance. He had never cried so much at once before, and he could feel the tell-tale sting behind his eyes and Richie smacked a kiss to Mike’s forehead. He managed to say: “Man, I’m getting you out, too. Don’t think I’m—"

Shelly and her pink scrubs appeared, breathless, at arm's length. 

"Mr. Tozier," she said, paying no mind to the sight the Losers made. Shelly had likely seen far worse, especially in Derry. "Your husband is coming around." 

And, just like that, the world exploded into mild chaos. 

*

The first words out of Eddie's mouth, after seven and a half days of nothing, were slurred and groggy: " _Whaddid I miss?_ " 

Richie promptly burst into tears. Again.

*

It's another eighteen hours before Eddie's actually awake for more than five or ten minutes at a time.

To his credit, when he’s cognizant enough to have a major freakout about the healing crater in his chest, Eddie doesn’t. He does, however, paw at the front of his hospital gown to inspect the bandages and pales at how much skin they cover. He touched gingerly at his cheek, found that Ben’s piss-poor stitches had been replaced by proper, surgical thread that'll dissolve on its own and will leave only a thin white scar behind. 

“They had to take your spleen,” Richie told him, and that’s what sets him off. 

“Why the fuck would they have to take my—”

“Spaghetti, the staff has to keep up with the orders in the cafe downstairs—”

“Rich, that’s _disgusting,_ why would you—?” 

“Five minutes,” Stan sighed, eyes rolling skyward as if seeking strength elsewhere. “How can you two just pin-ball out of control like this in under five fucking minutes?” 

Richie spread his fingers wide, giving his best jazz hands. “Talent.” 

Bev, from Ben’s lap in the semi-circle of assorted plastic chairs, booed. It sent Mike to grinning and Bill to snort-choking around the swig of water, and Eddie had gone a little soft around the edges. Richie didn’t think it was possible for his heart to be so full. 

But, with Eddie awake, things began to shift into motion. It became rapidly clear that the others were gearing up to get on with their lives. 

“Once you’re discharged, Eddie,” Mike announced. “I’m headed to Florida.” 

To which Bill had prompted, curiously: “What’s in Florida, Mikey?” 

Mike shot him an easy shrug, said, “Beats the hell out of me, but I’m ready to find out.” 

Bev had taken frequent phone calls with a lawyer and was in the throes of her own divorce, a prospect that made a different kind of pride break through Richie’s system. He’d noticed her long sleeves the night they’d reunited, how, once she’d tipped back a few drinks, she’d pushed them up to her elbows until she caught Richie staring at the bruises shaped like fingers on her pale arms, and she’d shaken her head, a microscopic thing. 

Ben had seen, too. Richie was sure of it. 

They’d ride off into the sunset together, though. Ben and Bev. He was sure of that, too, and honestly, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more for them. 

“I...,” Bill began. “I think I k-know how m-my movie will end, now.” 

“Make it a good one, Big Bill,” Richie said, clapping the man on his back. “Because if you don’t, I will spam the groupchat with memes kids have made about it on Twitter. I’m not afraid to do a deep dive, man. You know I’m not.” 

“I k-know you’re not, Rich,” Bill snorted, and he glanced briefly to Mike and away with a little smile. “I have a g-good feeling about it.” 

“I’m going home to my wife, if anyone cares,” Stan said, where, if Richie’s eye sight could be believed, he was texting the missus a string of seven yellow heart emojis. Love-struck was a good look on Stan. “You know. Even, like, a little.” 

“Of course we care,” Eddie said.

“We care _so_ much,” Bev confirmed, adding: “We’d love to meet Patty, Stan.” 

“I’d love that, too,” he murmured, coloring along the slants of his cheeks. Richie thought of the boy who'd dropped an f-bomb in the middle of his bar mitzvah and didn’t bother holding back a toothy smile. 

“What about you, Rich?” Ben wondered, and Richie’s smile dimmed. Eddie frowned.

If he were honest, the extent of his plan ended with Eddie waking up. He hadn’t let himself think too far into the future, because each scenario Richie considered had Eddie at the center. He didn’t let himself think _and what if Eds doesn’t want to play that kind of role in your life, huh?_

The niggling thought crept in, anyway. 

“Well,” he said, exhaling through his teeth with a brief lift-fall of his brow. “I need to get my glasses fixed, I guess.” 

“ _Richie,”_ Mike huffed. “Beyond that.” 

“Fine, fine, Micycle,” Richie rolled his eyes as if he were put-out, but Mike’s concern had always softened him up like Bev’s giggles or Eddie’s rapid fire retorts. “I kind of pitched my career into the gutter when you called, and I imagine TMZ’s told the world I’m on a coke binge, so? And since I haven't been seen in about two weeks, they've probably got me dead in a ditch somewhere outside of Reno. I guess the first step is, uh, solving that little issue. And I’m one hundred and ten percent firing my ghost writer. I’m... I’m sick and tired of being know as the woman-hating shit bag that’s forty and still relying on college humor. I want to write my own show.” Richie puffed out his chest, feeding off the encouraging nods around the room. “I am _going_ to write my own material, and fuck if I’m not getting a Netflix special out of it. I’m speaking that into existence. Move over, John Mulaney, I’m coming for you!” 

“Hell yeah you are!” Bev cheered, leaning over Bill to give Richie a high-five. 

“Alright, alright, don’t be such a _fan_ ,” Richie teased, and Bev stuck her tongue out at him, delighted, and he glanced to Eddie with a half-smile just to find Eddie was already looking back at him. “Come on, Eduardo, you’re up to bat. Don’t miss.” 

“Fuck you,” came the grumbled response. Typical. It sent Richie beaming. “I, uh. I’m going to leave Myra. I... seeing all of you again, it... it made me realize that I’ve been living a half-life? And even before this—,” he flapped a hand at his wound, at the heart monitor, at the room in which they were gathered. “—happened, just being with the rest of you Losers really just showed me that... that I have so much I don’t want to lose. Not again.” 

And before anyone could say anything to _that_ , Shelly with the pink scrubs, which had been changed out for teal scrubs patterned with smiling turtles, arrived. She beamed at Eddie. 

“It’s good to see you upright and talking,” she said, ever-cheery. “You had a lot of people real worried about you, especially your—”

The moment, the single, dreaded moment that sank over Richie before it had fully come to fruition, stretched taut. 

“—husband. He was here every single night, rarely left your side, bless him. You got a good one, here, Mr. Kaspbrak,” and, as if the noose that Richie had fastened and settled around his neck couldn’t get any tighter, Shelly patted Richie’s arm. Eddie zeroed in on the movement, his eyes flickering up and latching onto Richie’s rapidly paling face. “Don’t let him go.” 

Richie wasn’t sure who breaks the silence first, but it’s either Stan or Bev, and both of them whisper _oh shit._

Once Shelly’s finished her rounds and her chattering continues out into the hall, Eddie, who had not spoken a word in a full five minutes, who had not stopped _looking_ at Richie, asked the room as a collective unit: “Can you all, ah, give me a minute alone with Richie? Please?” 

Bill and Mike are quick to rise, and Bev climbed off Ben’s lap in one fluid motion before offering him a hand up. Stan loitered by Richie’s elbow, eyebrows crinkled together as if to say _here’s your opening_ and _if you run for the exit, I’ll give you at least a two minute head start_ at once. 

“Be proud, Rich,” Stan murmured with a little dip of his head, and all too soon it’s just Richie, and Eddie, and the muttering of the central cooling unit pumping frigid air around them. He wanted to smooth the lines of Eddie's forehead, but Eddie was awake, and he knew if he let his thumb trace his skin, Eddie would swat him away. Would say _I'm not fragile, asshole_ and Richie, heart on his sleeve and in his throat, would say too soft (too damning) _you never were._

There was a bloated silence between them. Of course their was. Richie, more than anything, was lucky that Eddie wasn’t capable of getting out of bed and walking out of the hospital, and Richie’s life, and before he could spiral into another panic attack, Richie managed to say: “Wow, tough crowd.” 

To which Eddie, true to form, retaliated with: “Do you ever think about what comes out of your mouth, or do you just say whatever passes through your filter?” 

“What filter?” 

“Richie,” Eddie pressed, and he couldn’t miss the sternest or the barely-there plea carried by the single syllable. “What did that nurse mean by husband, huh?” 

He could feel his stomach making to lurch with nerves, though Richie couldn't even recall what he’d eaten last. It... fuck. Give him an alien demon-clown any day of the week, but this? Unearthed truths and brutal honesty? _Emotion?_ This was handing Richie a shovel and telling him to dig; this was taking the spade from his hands and striking him over the back of the head and burying him, delirious and alive, without a guiding light. 

This was Eddie, the love of Richie’s pathetic ass life. Eddie, who was, is, and will continue to be _everything_ no matter if shit hits the fan or not. 

“I, uh,” and Richie ducked his head, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to speak if he was looking at Eddie the entire time. He made friends with the speckled tile under his feet real fast. “When I thought I’d... we’d lost you, you can say I didn’t take it well. Like, not even a little. I was a fucking train wreck, Eds, and I— I wasn’t going to let anyone cart you out of sight, and Stan told one of the nurses that I was your husband so I could go back with you, get updates and shit like that. I was able to stay the night, too. Make sure you, uh. That you were never alone.” 

The pregnant pause after Richie rushed through his explanation was enough to send his legs bouncing with untapped energy. Richie could feel Eddie’s eyes on him like a physical caress and it was too much, and not enough, never, ever enough—

"I—," Eddie swallowed, hard. "I’m divorcing my wife because of you.” 

He’d never experienced the human equivalent of an error 404 message, but... yeah, no Richie was shutting down. Was this what it was like to have a stroke? Should he turn his head and cough? 

“You what?” 

“You heard me,” Eddie said, and something about it was defiant, and so, so Eddie. “I... I haven’t done anything that impulsive since we were kids, you know that? And I can’t find it in myself to regret it.” 

Richie’s brain was lagging. It made him into a broken record. “You _what?”_

 _“You what,”_ Eddie mocked, not unkindly. “Jesus, Tozier. Keep up, won’t you?” 

“Eds.” 

“Don’t call me that, you shithead,” Eddie snapped, and, because Eddie always was braver than Richie, continued: “I forgot you, but I didn’t. Not entirely, I don’t think. I’ve seen your stand-up specials on Comedy Central and I remember just channel surfing, once, and hearing a snippet of your voice and I— I just sank down onto my couch, because I couldn’t stand anymore. Fucking tears all over my face. Jesus, you turned me into a mess, Rich, and I didn’t even _know_ you. And then from the moment you hit that fucking gong at the Jade, something just clicked. 

“So, when that god forsaken clown had you in the Deadlights, I knew I had to do something, because I’d just gotten you back. And all my life, you were always protecting me. I... I guess I just wanted to do the same for you, for once. I was, well. I'd be lying if I said I was alright with dying if it meant you and the others lived, but this? I'm glad I get this."

"Eds," Richie croaked. A stream of responses whorled through his brain like water rushing down a drain: _it should've been me_ and _you've always protected me in your own, neurotic way_ and, the loudest of all, _saving me will never be worth losing you._ But there's very rarely a steady connection between his mouth and his brain, and Richie said: "I love you, too."

Eddie stilled.

Eddie squinted.

Eddie reached out and cradled the side of Richie's skull in his left hand, thumb tracing the under-eye bags that had made themselves at home on Richie's face.

"Do you mean it?"

He swallowed, and swore that Eddie tracked the movement if the little downward flicker of his eyes was to be trusted.

"Always," Richie whispered, thinking, just maybe, _you're braver than you think, too, Tozier_. He’d tipped in unconsciously, as if drawn to Eddie like a moth to a flame. "It's you. Of course I mean it."

“Richie,” Eddie said, and he’d shifted, wincing as he sat up. “If you don’t kiss me, I’m going to brain you to death with my bed pan.”

He had never moved so fast in his life, and Eddie let out a little huff of a laugh as Richie’s mouth landed on his. It wasn't quite gentle, but it wasn't entirely brutal, either. All Richie could comprehend was Eddie's warmth, the lips on his that were pliant and wet. Somewhere far away, his thirteen year old self was taking a pause in writing _Mr. Richard Kaspbrak_ in a notebook to fist-pump and shout in victory. Eddie made a soft sound low in his throat and one of his hands came up to cradle Richie's skull like Richie was something precious, like he never wanted Richie to be further than arm's reach again.

"Ngh," Richie managed when they parted. His brain was on the fritz, was still trying to comprehend that Eddie god damn Kaspbrak reciprocated his feelings. Fuck, maybe Richie was the one in the hospital bed; maybe this was just one big It-induced hallucination— 

"You have such a way with words," Eddie deadpanned, hauling him back in with exactly zero protest from Richie, and Richie didn’t know whether he wanted to mount Eddie right then and there or if he wanted to pull back, to memorize Eds’ face and capture it in his mind like a mosquito trapped in amber a la _Jurassic Park._ He settled for resting his forehead on Eddie’s, thumb tracing lightly over the gauze patch taped over Eddie’s cheek. 

“You’re staring,” Eddie murmured, as if he weren’t preening under Richie’s gaze. Then, as if realizing their setting, Eddie went stricken and wide-eyed. “Mother _fucker,_ I haven’t showered since we were down in the sewers. I haven’t brushed my teeth in—”

Richie scooted closer, knees knocking the side of the bed. “That’s how you know it’s real, baby. I wasn’t even paying attention to how rank your breath is.” 

“God, you ruined it. You—,” Eds had barely let himself get wound up before he was deflating, his head lolling to give Richie a soft look. “In case it wasn’t clear, I love you, too. I— before I got back to Derry, I didn’t even think it was possible to love someone so much.” 

He inhaled, too-sharp. Disbelief was a stranger to him. Richie knew what Eddie tasted like for fuck’s sake, and no one could take that away from him. 

“You’re sappier than an maple tree,” Richie whispered, thickly. “Fuck. You’re it for me, you know that? Is that too much? I—I feel like that’s definitely too much.” 

“No it isn’t,” Eddie murmured, pressing a light kiss to the bridge of Richie’s nose, to his brow, to his forehead. He tugged back, his fingertips touching sweetly at Richie’s cheeks, at the skin around his nose. “You used to have all these freckles. Where’d they go?” 

That was probably the meds talking, but something in Richie’s chest had inflated. He felt like a balloon— and not the red, demon-clown kind, either, but something light and airy and without limits. Naturally, Richie told him: “Don’t you know when I’m not on stage, I usually just sit in a room and eat saltines? I don’t go _outside,_ Eds. Fuck the sun and fuckvitamin D— unless it’s _your_ D—”

“ _Ruined,_ ” Eddie repeated loudly, jabbing a finger into Richie’s collarbone with a scowl. “What are you only going after low-hanging fruit now? Come on, you can do—”

”Don’t tell me you used to map my freckles, Eds,” Richie pressed, beaming, far more teary than he probably should be. “You totally used to make constellations out of them, didn't you? Did you name them? I bet you totally named them.”

Eddie flushed from his chin to his hairline. He had not, however, moved the hand he’d slipped into Richie’s hair and Richie was intimately aware of every gentle sweep of fingers against his scalp. “Do you ever shut up?”

Really, Eddie walked into that one, because Richie was quick to counter with: "How about you make me?"

And Eddie, never one to back down from a challenge, did just that.   
  


*

When the others eventually filed back in, they collectively took one look at the picture Eddie and Richie made with their clasped hands and their bodies angled towards one another, their kiss-bitten mouths, and grinned. Bill's smile was the sharpest, but Bev was the loudest by far even as Ben was, of course, the softest. 

"I owe someone money," Mike announced, grinning happily at the two of them. "Any of you all remember who?" 

Stan, the asshole, raised his hand with a little wiggle of his fingers and gave the crisp twenty Mike slipped into his hand a dramatic squeeze before he tucked it away in his wallet. 

"Took you two long enough," he said, to which Richie shrugged in a _what can you do?_ sort of way and Eddie let out a squawk. It was cute, cute, cute and not entirely unlike a goose. 

"What do you _mean_ 'took you two long enough'? Stan? Stanley, what the fuck does that—?" 

But Stan had already come forward, arms open and ready to give Richie and Eddie a collective embrace, ever-aware of Eddie's bandages. He dropped a lightning-fast peck on Richie's crown and did the same to Eddie, pulling back with shiny eyes and a shaky smile to say, "you idiots" in a way that translated directly to _I love you losers more than I could ever articulate._

* 

On the day that Eddie's discharged from the hospital, Richie drove them both back to the Town House so Eddie could throw his bags in the trunk of Richie's car. Ben and Bev had left the night before, with Mike and Bill having departed that morning. Stan texted them right as his flight back to Atlanta was scheduled to take off, assuring them that he'd message them again once he'd touched down and seen Patty. They had the group chat, which had steadily pinged with photo updates and texts; it looked like whatever memory-wiping agent that curled around Derry had faded with Pennywise. It looked like they would get to keep one another this go round, and Richie was practically punch drunk by the prospect. 

"We're probably gonna be those friends that get together at each other's beach houses at least four times a year," Richie said, matter of factly. "We're gonna be so lame. I can't wait." 

To which Eddie, bewilderedly, said, "Who the fuck owns a beach house?" 

"Ben, probably. I wouldn't put it past Bill, either and you know damn well once Mike sees the ocean, it's gonna take a lot to drag him away from it." 

"That's...," Eddie blinked. "That's fair. But would that really be so bad?" 

"Nah," he admitted, finding it didn't hurt to think about how empty his life had been before Mike's phone call, not when he suddenly had everything to lose. It was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. Richie had already started playing damage control by sending a few texts to his agent, Steve, who was furious, but intrigued when Richie told him that he'd been brainstorming ideas for a new set and he'd be happy to share them over coffee once he was back on the west coast. "It actually sounds close to perfect, actually." 

They'd be boarding different flights once they made it to the airport in Bangor. Eddie had to take care of some things back in New York, and Richie would be heading back to his place in LA to give his house a deep clean that hopefully suited Eddie's standards; once Eddie met with his lawyers, grabbed anything of value out of the place he shared with Myra, he'd be back on a plane, flying home to Richie. He'd been sure to tell Richie as much only about a thousand times, and if it were anyone else, Richie would've rolled his eyes and said _calm down, I heard you the first time,_ but it was _Eddie_ , and each reassurance stitched up a part of himself he hadn't realized was open and bleeding freely. Richie didn't think about how he'd have to fight the urge to call Eddie the moment they were apart, how he'd miss Eddie like a limb, miss the smell and the taste of him even as he knew that it was only a matter of time before they were together once more. 

For good. 

God, Richie couldn't wait to be domestic as _fuck._

For now, Eddie's pinkie hooked around his. Richie curled their ring fingers together, and then their middle and index fingers, too, and then they were holding hands over the gear shift like a couple of teenagers on their first date. He couldn't help his dopey smile, and felt his cheeks smart all the more when Eddie asked: 

"What's that face for?" 

And Richie, honest and light, so many things he'd become a stranger to in the last twenty-seven years, said: 

"I'm just happy, Eds. Like, stupid happy." 

That got his hand a squeeze, a trace of a warm thumb over the ridges of his knuckles.

"Yeah," Eddie said softly. His eyes were bright and brown, and the if the universe decided to swallow Richie whole in that very moment, he'd leave the world on cloud fucking nine. "Me, too." 

_*_

Pretty much everyone has heard the story of Icarus, or at least the Sparknotes version. 

And it’s wrong. 

See, Apollo, god of the sun? He was one beautiful fucker, and Icarus had been a goner the moment he laid eyes on the guy. And Icarus had never been able to get close enough to Apollo before; he’d tried, but time and distance and circumstances and even the Gods worked against them, but not this time. This time, Icarus had his wings. 

This time, when he flew, Apollo was waiting with open arms so they might collide in a burst of light.

Icarus never hits the ground. 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to take a minute to apologize for being MIA since earlier this year. I've got it listed in my bio on here, but I'm a college student and any time not spent in school is spent working; any and all free time is dedicated to homework and trying to see my friends to maintain some semblance of a social life. I'll be graduating in the spring (!!!!!! thank fucking god !!!!!!!!), so I'm hoping I'll have more time to get back to writing on here. I've also finished writing my first novel (which, holy shit????!!!!!!) and I've been in the throes of editing and putting out short stories at different lit mags trying to beef up my writer's bio for when I begin the agent querying process which is another beast in and of itself. 
> 
> Alright, okay. That was just a bunch of word vomit, but long story short: I appreciate every single one of you. Thanks for taking the time to read my work! Mwah! Take care of yourselves, everyone. The holiday season can be tough, especially in the current political environment. I hope, if you're not at the age where you can say "hey, my family is toxic and I'm sitting out this dinner" that my work can be an outlet for escape. Okay. Okay, actually wrapping up, now. I love ya'll and please be kind to yourselves.
> 
> Catch me on twitter @ buckyjerkbarnes or on Tumblr @ fypoedameron
> 
> Any comments and kudos mean the world to me, x.


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